


SPN Fic: Snooze Button

by keysmash



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-03
Updated: 2011-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-15 12:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmash/pseuds/keysmash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam had a sleep debt or something, so now Dean was the one keeping a bored watch while his brother slept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	SPN Fic: Snooze Button

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through, but not past, 611. Beta by locknkey.

The motel's single-serving coffee pot finally gurgled its way to life, and Dean nodded before turning his back on it. At least it worked, and he wouldn't need to buy the morning's coffee somewhere else.

The blackout shades were pulled as tight as they'd go, but it wasn't far enough, and sun seeped in along the edges of the window so the room was dim instead of dark. He hadn't needed to turn on a light to set the free bag of shitty coffee brewing, and he didn't need one now to cross to his duffel on the far side of the room. Most of his clothes were in the back seat and there wasn't much to dig through. Mismatched socks, a pair of boxers softened with age, a dingy undershirt. His only presentable pair of jeans was on the floor at the foot of the bed, piled together with the shirt he'd worn the two days before, and Sam's clothes from the same period. This place actually did have only kings vacant when they'd checked in the night before. It hadn't changed their sleeping arrangements, but the room was messier without an extra bed as storage space.

He turned around, leaning against the chipped table and eying the clothes on the floor. There weren't visible stains on the jeans, or any holes too big, but the shirt was getting rank, and Dean didn't really want to sit through another day of wearing it. They'd have to bite the bullet and do laundry soon.

The coffee finished brewing, and apart from Sam's steady breathing, the room fell quiet again. Dean poured and made a face when he found wet grounds clinging in the glass in a trail from the bottom of the pot to the spout. This brew would need all the chemical help it could get, and Dean added the packets provided of non-sugar sweetener and non-dairy creamer. He put the mug on the counter to cool, and hopefully mellow, for a few minutes, and sat on the end of the bed to pick through his old clothes.

It was a stupid mistake, maybe because he still felt thick and slow without his coffee, and Dean froze almost as quickly as he sat down. He held his breath, yesterday's shirt in his hand, and the room stayed quiet for a few moments before Sam stirred, rolling over and sighing. He wasn't awake yet, but he would be soon. Dean didn't know how someone who slept so much could simultaneously sleep so lightly, but that was Sammy for you.

He held still, hoping against experience that Sam would settle, but it was eleven in the morning. Sam'd been in bed for almost fourteen hours at this point, and he wasn't sleeping deeply at all. Sure enough, he rolled over again.

"Dean?" he asked, sounding slightly panicked, as usual, at waking up alone, and Dean turned around to clap one hand over Sam's ankle through the sheets.

"Here, man," he said, and Sam stopped his thrashing before it really began. The two of them hadn't messed around since before Detroit, what with first Lisa and then Sam's lack of a soul to get in the way, but physical contact was still a good thing. Sometimes, most of the time, nothing else could start Sam on the path to calming back down. "Had to get up and piss."

Sam yawned. "Time's it?" Dean told him, and Sam laughed a little. "God, would you believe I'm still tired?"

"Yep," Dean said, unsurprised. Sam was always tired these days.

Dean dropped the shirt and crawled up the bed, grabbing up his phone from the bedside table as he went. Next to him, Sam rolled over again. He tucked himself as close to Dean as he could get through the covers, which apparently wasn't enough contact because he pulled one hand free to press his bare arm to Dean's. Dean gave him a moment to settle down and then adjusted again, shifting his weight so they fit better together.

There was no word from Bobby yet. Dean tapped one finger against the side of his phone and then looked at Sam. One side of his face was still pillow-creased, and his hair was standing up the way it only did when he washed it and then went right to bed. It looked like that a lot since Dean's most recent deal, now that Dean was the one keeping a bored watch while his brother slept.

As Dean watched, Sam yawned again, a jaw-cracking, eye-closing affair. "You can get up, if you want. I'll probably be fine," he said, but he pursed his lips and looked away, like he knew better.

It hadn't even been a week since the last time Sam tried sleeping by himself, and Dean didn't think the nightmares would be any better now than then. And he'd rather have Sam sleep, even if that was a group activity now, than scratch.

"Nah," Dean said. He grabbed his book from the far side of the bedside table and put his phone in its place, then flicked on the reading lamp. "We've got some time."

He elbowed Sam out of the way so he could get under the sheets, which was easier said than done with Sam wound around the covers and taking up most of the bed. Dean had a life's experience in wrangling Sam into and out of beds though, and he managed it one more time. Once he pulled the sheet up to his shoulders, Sam scooted right back into place. He wrapped one arm over Dean's chest and practically nuzzled up to his side, tucking both of his knees against one of Dean's. They wound up with one of Dean's arms under Sam's head and one of Sam's tucked between them, but then Sam sighed, a warm huff of breath on Dean's shoulder, and fell still.

Sam's breathing hadn't slowed yet when Dean opened _Catch-22_ one-handed. Lying on his side with fabric hanging off his arm, Sam's shoulders looked broader than ever before. Every time he'd glanced up over the years and caught a glimpse of Sam changing clothes, or doing push-ups, or carrying someone out of a lair before it was their turn to be devoured, Dean thought that _this_ was the limit, and Sam had bulked up as much as he could without resorting to protein shakes and black-market injectables. But here he was, almost too big to share a king-sized mattress with another adult, clinging to Dean in order to sleep like he had back when he was too little to pronounce their last name correctly.

Dean shifted his arm so he could run his hand over Sam's back, the bed-warmed expanse of it, and started in on the next chapter while Sam fell back to sleep.

.

Dean's arm was tingling and his fingers had crossed into full-on numbness when he woke up again, and he wasn't very gentle when he tugged free from under Sam's head. Sam snuffled but pushed his face further into the pillow instead of waking. Dean sighed and shoved his book off his chest and onto the floor. He slept more than he should these days, much more than his body needed, in keeping Sam company. Somehow he felt tired all the time instead of rested, so that napping right after sleeping for nine hours felt normal, instead of too much.

There was a word for this, and that word was _sedentary_ , but Dean didn't care. He turned to curl on his side, matching Sam's position, and closed his eyes again. It'd been a long time since he'd just rested with someone, and it was longer still since Sam was the usual person on the other side of the mattress. Dean liked having it back. He was damn glad to have it again.

Sam exhaled noisily and stretched, bumping his feet against Dean's, and his eyes were open when Dean checked. Dean smiled at him and knocked their knees together.

"Morning, sunshine," he said.

"God, shut up," Sam said, rubbing his face with the heel of one hand and trying not to laugh.

"You are ridiculous." Dean made it an announcement even as he let his own eyes close most of the way again. "You're gonna get bed sores, man, and I —"

He stopped there because Sam's lips were on his, in the same careful, closed-mouthed sort of kiss Sam used to give him in the mornings. Dean didn't react for a moment, maybe an entire minute, and he couldn't decide between kissing Sam as well and pulling back to frown at him. They didn't do this anymore, for better or for worse. Dean could barely handle Sam's breath, warm and soft on his face, or the hand Sam fumbled between them before pressing his palm to Dean's chest.

"Sammy," he said. He couldn't make himself pull away farther than separating just enough to speak against Sam's lips. "What the hell, man, I —" He had to stop to kiss Sam a few more times, had to, and then Sam slid his tongue into Dean's mouth and Dean lost his train of thought.

"I had a dream," Sam said, while he kicked at the sheets. Their combined body heat made the covers hot and uncomfortable, and Dean pushed at them with one hand too. They both gave up after getting the fabric down from their chests to their thighs. It didn't give them much room to move, but Sam pushed one leg between Dean's, thrusting up and ahead with it until his thigh snugged up against Dean's cock and his own dick pressed hotly against Dean's hip.

"Not a sex dream or anything," Sam continued. "But not a nightmare either, just a normal dream, and I woke up, and —" He trailed off into kisses again, sucking at Dean's lips until Dean forgot he'd been saying anything at all. But then Sam said, "I missed you, man," and that didn't need much context. Dean shuddered and pressed his hand into the small of Sam's back as his answer, holding them closer together.

Being wrapped up around Sam in bed these days meant Dean's body was ready to sleep, and keeping his eyes open was a job in itself. He wanted to watch Sam's face as they ground together through their boxers. He hadn't seen Sam like this in a long time, with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth hanging open, panting whenever he wasn't kissing Dean. But Dean's eyelids felt weighted down, and he wasn't looking as they came like dominoes, one and then the other.

Dean rolled onto his back to try to catch his breath. He grinned a little when Sam followed, draping himself over Dean's chest and putting his face firmly against Dean's neck. He could feel Sam's ribs expand with every breath, and then the moist heat of Sam's open-mouthed exhalations on his throat a moment later. The corner of the ceiling that butted up against the bathroom wall was water stained, the paint yellowing and peeling, and Dean studied the pattern of cracks while Sam rubbed his thumb back and forth over Dean's chest, just far enough away from his nipple to stave off over-stimulation.

"Are we cool with this?" Sam asked eventually, picking up his head to look at Dean as he spoke.

Dean rolled his eyes and looked away. Hopefully that would hide his grin until he could bite it back into submission. "This is how I know it really is you," he said. "Of course you can't let anything happen without trying to talk it to death."

"I'm taking that as yes." Sam didn't sound amused, but he was letting himself smile, and after a second Dean gave in and did the same.

"Come on," Dean said, and clapped Sam on the shoulder. "Cold crappy coffee for breakfast, man, get a move on."

Dean pushed at Sam's shoulder until Sam let him up. He winced at the pull of drying come as he went to start another tiny pot of coffee and heard Sam laughing behind him. Dean shot him the bird without looking and changed underwear at the table, scrubbing himself mostly clean with the dry side of his dirty boxers, and then sat at the foot of the bed next to Sam. He'd finally gotten up, even if his eyes still weren't open all the way and his hair was a bigger mess than usual. Sam knocked his shoulder against Dean, and together they sorted through yesterday's clothes.


End file.
